David Scott Lewis calls himself an "infomaniac." In 1975, when he was 17, he built a personal computer from the first available Altair kits. He became a "hacker" and served as a consultant to "WarGames," a 1983 film about a teen-age computer nerd who nearly triggers a nuclear war. Today, the 35-year-old Lewis cruises the Internet, the global electronic supernetwork known simply as "the Net" that links 20,000 computer networks and boasts 20 million users.

David Scott Lewis calls himself an "infomaniac." In 1975, when he was 17, he built a personal computer from the first available Altair kits. He became a "hacker" and served as a consultant to "WarGames," a 1983 film about a teen-age computer nerd who nearly triggers a nuclear war. Today, the 35-year-old Lewis cruises the Internet, the global electronic supernetwork known simply as "the Net" that links 20,000 computer networks and boasts 20 million users.

Several Orange County advertising and public relations agencies have begun offering their services on-line, and others say they expect to begin using the Internet by the end of the year. But to succeed, interactive advertising must account for the habits of computer users, advertising and technology executives said at a recent meeting of the Business Marketing Assn.

It's 6:30 p.m., and Michael Kiley, associate director of the UC Irvine bookstore, is rushing off to Japanese class. "I need to learn just some rudimentary stuff so I can handle orders from Japan," he says. The bookstore has been drawing as many as 120,000 browsers a week from around the globe since it began advertising on the Internet.

It's 6:30 p.m., and Michael Kiley, associate director of the UC Irvine bookstore, is rushing off to Japanese class. "I need to learn just some rudimentary stuff so I can handle orders from Japan," he says. * The bookstore has been drawing as many as 120,000 browsers a week from around the globe since it began advertising on the Internet.

Nobody wants to maneuver through a computer maze just to watch a movie. But if the builders of the information superhighway package their services well, using them will be easier than driving to the neighborhood video store. Relatively few people use the interactive services that are already available because they are complicated, limited in capacity, costly--or just boring.

Transmitting infrared signals is nothing new for officials at Irvine Sensors Corp. Most have been at it for years now--for example, every time they change TV channels using a remote control. Soon, though, such commonplace infrared waves may link computers with each other and with printers and other devices.